The report—Foresight, insight and oversight: Enhancing long-term governance through better parliamentary scrutiny—is the result of a joint project between Victoria University of Wellington’s Institute for Governance and Policy Studies and staff of the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. It draws on nearly 60 interviews and meetings with MPs, former MPs, government officials, Officers of Parliament, academics and think-tank researchers. To establish best practice, the project also looked at other parliaments and academic literature on the subject.
New Zealand interviewees variously described the present system of parliamentary scrutiny, especially of government performance, as “broken”, “poor”, “weak”, “inadequate”, “cursory” and “patchy”. The report says “the general agreement was that the House currently undertakes relatively little scrutiny of long-term policy problems or the quality of anticipatory governance”.
No single, simple reform is likely to generate transformative change or dramatic improvements, says the report, so “a concerted, holistic and systematic approach is required”.
Options include:
- Change the size and structure of select committees—for example by establishing a Committee for the Future or a Governance Committee
- Add a new committee function or subject area relating to long-term governance
- Improve the Government’s long-term reporting, including better reporting of progress towards long-term objectives
- Enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of select committees, particularly during their financial scrutiny activities
- Encourage cross-party pre-legislative consultation to foster durable legislative solutions
- Encourage committees to undertake more forward-looking inquiries
- Track and follow up on the Government’s progress in implementing select committee recommendations
- Boost the use by committees of advice from Officers of Parliament and independent experts, including the possible appointment of a Chief Parliamentary Science Adviser
- Consider establishing a cross-party futures forum of MPs working in association with respected research organisations and sector groups to examine long-term issues
- Explore possible policy, legislative and constitutional reforms.
Report co-author Jonathan Boston, Professor of Public Policy at Victoria University of Wellington, says four-year rather than three-year Parliaments and an increase in MPs from 120 to 150 should be considered.
“The current three-year Parliaments, as well as reinforcing a short-term bias in ministers and MPs, contributes to a substantial turnover rate of MPs,” says Professor Boston. “New Zealand also has a particularly small Parliament compared with most similar-sized democracies. Consequently, the relatively small pool of MPs has implications for the number and size of select committees, which in turn affects the amount of business that can be conducted in the committee system.”
Recognising some of the suggested changes would entail extra costs, the report says they would be relatively modest compared with the potential for better long-term governance to generate large savings in future fiscal costs and significant social and environmental benefits.
Foresight, insight and oversight: Enhancing long-term governance through better parliamentary scrutiny was co-authored by Professor Boston, David Bagnall, Principal Clerk (Procedure) in the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives, and Anna Barry, a research assistant and tutor in Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Government.